The braves returned to the troubled chief; In his lodge he sat in his silent grief. "Surely," they said, "she has turned a spirit. No trail she left with her flying feet; No pathway leads to her far retreat. She flew in the air, and her wail--we could hear it, As she upward rose to the shining stars; And we heard on the river, as we stood near it, The falling drops of Wiwâstè's tears."
Wakâwa thought of his daughter's words Ere the south-wind came and the piping birds-- "My Father, listen--my words are true," And sad was her voice as the whippowil When she mourns her mate by the moon-lit rill, "Wiwâstè lingers alone with you; The rest are sleeping on yonder hill-- Save one--and he an undutiful son-- And you, my Father, will sit alone When _Sisóka_[53] sings and the snow is gone." His broad breast heaved on his troubled soul, The shadow of grief o'er his visage stole Like a cloud on the face of the setting sun.
"She has followed the years that are gone," he said; "The spirits the words of the witch fulfill; For I saw the ghost of my father dead, By the moon's dim light on the misty hill. He shook the plumes on his withered head, And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill. And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard, Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird." Then lo, as he looked from his lodge afar, He saw the glow of the Evening-star; "And yonder," he said, "is Wiwâstè's face; She looks from her lodge on our fading race, Devoured by famine, and fraud, and war, And chased and hounded by fate and woe, As the white wolves follow the buffalo;" And he named the planet the _Virgin Star_.[54]
"Wakâwa," he muttered, "the guilt is thine! She was pure--she was pure as the fawn unborn. O why did I hark to the cry of scorn, Or the words of the lying libertine? Wakâwa, Wakâwa, the guilt is thine! The springs will return with the voice of birds, But the voice of my daughter will come no more. She wakened the woods with her musical words, And the sky-lark, ashamed of his voice, forbore. She called back the years that had passed, and long I heard their voice in her happy song. O why did the chief of the tall _Hóhè_ His feet from _Kapóza_[6] so long delay? For his father sat at my father's feast, And he at Wakâwa's--an honored guest. He is dead!--he is slain on the Bloody Plain, By the hand of the treacherous Chippeway; And the face shall I never behold again Of my brave young brother--the chief Chaskè. Death walks like a shadow among my kin; And swift are the feet of the flying years That cover Wakâwa with frost and tears, And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin. Wakâwa, the voice of the years that are gone Will follow thy feet like the shadow of death, Till the paths of the forest and desert lone Shall forget thy footsteps. O living breath, Whence are thou, and whither so soon to fly? And whence are the years? Shall I overtake Their flying feet in the star-lit sky? From his last long sleep will the warrior wake? Will the morning break in Wakâwa's tomb, As it breaks and glows in the eastern skies? Is it true?--will the spirits of kinsmen come And bid the bones of the brave arise? Wakâwa, Wakâwa, for thee the years Are red with blood and bitter with tears. Gone--brothers, and daughters, and wife--all gone That are kin to Wakâwa--but one--but one-- Wakínyan Tânka--undutiful son! And he estranged from his father's _tee_, Will never return till the chief shall die. And what cares he for his father's grief? He will smile at my death--it will make him chief. Woe burns in my bosom. Ho, warriors--Ho! Raise the song of red war; for your chief must go To drown his grief in the blood of the foe! I shall fall. Raise my mound on the sacred hill. Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill; For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground. The Autumn blasts o'er Wakâwa's mound Will chase the hair of the thistles' head, And the bare-armed oak o'er the silent dead, When the whirling snows from the north descend, Will wail and moan in the midnight wind. In the famine of winter the wolf will prowl, And scratch the snow from the heap of stones, And sit in the gathering storm and howl, On the frozen mound, for Wakâwa's bones. But the years that are gone shall return again, As the robin returns and the whippowil, When my warriors stand on the sacred hill And remember the deeds of their brave chief slain."